VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN in TURKEY a Nationwide Survey
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN TURKEY A Nationwide Survey Ayşe Gül Altınay Yeşim Arat Punto İstanbul 2009 Published in 2009 by Punto Publishing Solutions / Punto Baskı Çözümleri Halaskargazi Cad. Sait Kuran İş Merkezi No. 301, Kat 5 Şişli 34381 İstanbul – Turkey © 2009 by Ayşe Gül Altınay and Yeşim Arat All rights reserved. The pdf version of this report can be reproduced, shared, and printed online without permission as long as no changes are made to the original document and due credit is given. ISBN: 978-975-01103-7-5 Translated by Amy Spangler Cover and page design by Savaş Yıldırım Visual material in the front and back cover used with permission from the respective organizations: Front cover: • Kırk Örük: Kadına Yönelik Şiddetle Mücadele Kooperatifi/Kırk Örük: Cooperative for the Struggle Against Violence Against Women, 2007 • “10. YIL: Kadınların şiddetten kurtulmak için geliştirdikleri yöntemlerin yeni bir dünya hayal etmeyi mümkün kılacağına inanıyoruz” (10th Anniversary: We believe that the methods women have designed to seek liberation from violence will enable the imagination of a new world) – KAMER Foundation, 2007 • “Anadolu’nun orta yerinde şiddete karşı kadınlar elele” (In the middle of Anatolia: Women hand-in- hand against violence” – Kadın Dayanışma Vakfı/Women’s Solidarity Foundation, 2007 • “Kadına yönelik şiddete son” (End to violence against women) – Amnesty International, 2007 • “Geceleri de sokakları da istiyoruz” (We want both the nights and the streets) – Ankaralı Feministler/ Feminists of Ankara, 2007 • “Bağır herkes duysun! Erkek şiddeti son bulsun!” (Shout so that everyone can hear! Make male violence stop!) – “Dayağa Karşı Kadın Dayanışması” 20. Yılında/20th Anniversary of “Women’s Solidarity Against Beating,” 2007 • “Kadınların şiddete bakışı” (Women’s view of violence) – 4. Uluslararası Gezici Filmmor Kadın Filmleri Festivali/4th International Filmmor Women’s Film Festival on Wheels, 2006 • “Şiddetin ötesine yolculuk” (Journey beyond violence) – Filmmor Kadın Kooperatifi/Filmmor Women’s Cooperative, 2006 Back cover: • “Aile İçi Şiddete Son!”(End to Domestic Violence!) – Hürriyet, 2004 • “Namus”(Honour) – 5. Uluslararası Gezici Filmmor Kadın Filmleri Festivali/5th International Filmmor Women’s Film Festival on Wheels, 2007 • “Her kadının içinde bir mucize saklı”(There is a miracle hidden in every woman) – KAMER Foundation, 2006 • “Kadına karşı şiddeti durdur” (Stop violence against women) – Amnesty International Turkey, 2004 The (longer) Turkish version of this report, Türkiye’de Kadına Yönelik Şiddet (Ayşe Gül Altınay and Yeşim Arat, Istanbul: Punto, 2007), received the 2008 PEN Duygu Asena Award. For more information on the survey and to access the Turkish version: http://www.kadinayoneliksiddet.org/ [email protected] Table of Contents Tables v Preface to the English Edition vii Acknowledgements xvi Introduction 1 1 Survey Methodology 5 A Short History of Research on Violence Against Women 7 Our Methodology 11 Sampling and Implementation 15 Basic Demographic Characteristics of the Sample 20 2 Survey Findings 33 Women’s Views on Violence and Gender Equality 34 Women’s Experiences of Violence 37 Women’s Views on the Struggle against Violence 53 3 Discussion and Suggestions 63 Preliminary Conclusions 64 Policy Implications 68 Appendix: Questionnaire 71 Bibliography 91 About the Authors 104 Tables Table 1 Distribution of Interviews According to Provinces 18 Table 2 Comparison of National Census Data and Survey Sample Data 19 Table 3 Whether This Was the Woman’s First Marriage 20 Table 4 Form of Marriage 20 Table 5 How Couples Met and Married 21 Table 6 Birth Place – Type of Settlement 22 Table 7 Net Household Income (Monthly) 22 Table 8 Income-Generating Work by Women 23 Table 9 Place of Income-Generating Work by Women 23 Table 10 Type of Income-Generating Work by Women 24 Table 11 Languages Known and Languages Spoken With Family Members (Turkey) 25 Table 12 Languages Known and Languages Spoken With Family Members (East) 26 Table 13 Ethnic Identification 27 Table 14 Belief in a Religion 27 Table 15 Religious Identification of Believers 28 Table 16 Religious Denominations of Believers 28 Table 17 Level of Education 30 Table 18 Views on Justification of Beating 35 Table 19 Gender Relations in the Home 37 Table 20 Getting Permission 38 Table 21 Slapping, Shoving and Beating by the Husband (Physical Violence) 39 Table 22 Whether Women Have Told Others about the Experience of Physical Violence 41 Table 23 Physical Violence and Marital Status 41 Table 24 Physical Violence and How Couples Met and Married 42 Table 25 Physical Violence and Women’s Education 43 Table 26 Physical Violence and Spouse’s Education 44 Table 27 Physical Violence and Income 45 Table 28 Physical Violence and Relative Contribution to Household Income 46 Table 29 Physical Violence and Type of Settlement – Turkey 46 Table 30 Physical Violence and Type of Settlement – East 47 Table 31 Sexual Violence 48 Table 32 Spousal Prevention of Income-Generating Work 49 Table 33 Women’s Knowledge of the Civil Code on Property Regime 50 Chart 1 Multivariate Analysis of Physical Violence via Discriminant Analysis 51-52 Table 34 What Would You Do If Your Husband Were to Beat You Today? 55 Table 35 What Would You Do If You Heard Your Neighbor Being Beaten By Her Spouse? 56 Table 36 Have You Heard of the Family Protection Law? 57 Table 37 Do You Know Anyone Who Has Benefited from the Family Protection Law? 57 Table 38 Knowledge of the Property Regime and of the Family Protection Law 58 Table 39 Knowledge of the Property Regime and of the Family Protection Law, and Education 59 Table 40 Do Institutions Carry out Their Responsibilities Concerning the Prevention of Violence against Women? 60 Table 41 Can the State Prevent Men’s Violence Against Their Spouses? 61 Table 42 Are There Enough Women’s Shelters in Turkey? 61 Table 43 Do You Approve of Your Taxes Being Used to Establish Women’s Shelters? 62 Table 44 Should the Courts Penalize Men Who Beat Their Wives? 62 Preface to the English Edition January 2009 There she was, a beautiful woman, a really beautiful woman who is attractive and carries herself with confidence. I mean, will she even talk to me? I had such a low opinion of myself that I believed she would not even talk to me. And then she be- gan. She told us her name and then she asked my name. I was shocked. I mean, of course, people give names even to their dogs and cats, right? And I as a 44 year old woman should also have a name. Only that I had forgotten my name [sigh]. I was seriously shocked. I shook for a moment and then told my name. She asked me its meaning and who had given it to me. I had never been asked such ques- tions before. That was my first shock. I could not stop shaking as I told her about my name that day. Kardelen’s story1 about her name resonates strongly with the bestsell- ing feminist novel Kadının Adı Yok (The Woman Has No Name) by Duygu Asena. Sometimes referred to as the “first feminist manifesto in Turkey,”2 Kadının Adı Yok first came out in 1987 and reached a record high of 40 edi- tions in one year. In July 2006, when her author Duygu Asena died, it was a large group of feminist women who carried her coffin out of the mosque where her funeral prayer had taken place. This was against established reli- gious practice. One large banner said, “The woman has a name. And we will not forget.” Kardelen was not at this funeral. She was busy changing her life and the lives of the women around her as one of the very few self-identified feminists in her small town at the Eastern borderlands of Turkey. And it had all begun, quite literally, with remembering and (re)claiming her name. When we interviewed Kardelen in April 2006, she regarded what she had accomplished in the past two years of her life as nothing short of a “revolu- tion.” She had recently told “the beautiful woman” who had initiated this rev- olution by asking her name, that if it hadn’t been for her, she would probably be lying in a grave. “Because of the violence I was experiencing, I had already attempted suicide. And now I am here, talking to you with self-confidence.” Gender-based violence constitutes one of the major mechanisms through which women, gays and transsexuals/transgenders are excluded from social, economic and political life in Turkey. Since 1987, gender-based violence has 1 Self-chosen pseudonym. 2 Şirin Tekeli, “Şirin Tekeli’den Duygu İçin,” Bianet, August 1, 2006 (retrieved October 12, 2008): http:// www.bianet.org/bianet/kategori/kadin/83240/sirin-tekeliden-duygu-icin. viii Ayşe Gül Alt›nay and Yeşim Arat been one of the key issues within the feminist movement. 1987 marks not only the publication of the groundbreaking novel on gender and sexual poli- tics by Duygu Asena, Kadının Adı Yok, but also the organization of the Wom- en’s Solidarity March Against Violence, the first major feminist rally of the second wave women’s movement and the first mass political demonstration of post coup d’état Turkey. Since then, feminists have established women’s centers and other organizations addressing violence against women in more than 30 provinces.3 Lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexual/transgender activists (LGBTT) have also formed institutions and platforms that prob- lematize violence on the basis of sexual orientation and identity.4 In recent years, gender-based violence has occupied the national agenda, particularly in the context of reforms in basic laws such as the Civil Code and the Turk- ish Penal Code. To trace women’s experience of and the feminist struggle against domes- tic violence by male spouses (the major form of gender-based violence ad- dressed by second-wave feminism in Turkey) from the late 1980s till today, we conducted an 18-month research project titled “Domestic Violence and the Struggle against It,” supported by TÜBİTAK (The Scientific and Techno- logical Research Council of Turkey).